Heroes and Villains
In a New Era
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a group of adventurers known as the Parker Expedition arrived in Jerusalem. On a quest to find the Lost Ark, they excavated much of the city’s ancient, underground water system.
A Poet’s Strange Visions
According to the expedition’s guide, a Swede named Valter Juvelius, the prophet Ezekiel had written that the Lost Ark had been hidden near the Gihon Spring, known to Christians as the Fountain of the Virgin.
A Quest for the Lost Ark
After excavating much of Jerusalem’s underground water system, the expedition turned its attention to Zedekiah’s Cave and the Temple Mount. Their work at the latter location led to an Arab riot that ended the expedition’s work.
The Return of the Beast
In the 1930s, the Nazi leader and occultist Heinrich Himmler organized expeditions to the Near East, in search of religious relics. As part of his scheme to revive German paganism in place of Judeo-Christian ideas, he began planning the Holocaust.